Worktop replacement in Shad Thames

Yes. Shad Thames is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE1. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

The goods lift is generous and the flat entrance often is not, so the tightest point on the route is inside the flat rather than in the building. Converted warehouses put the kitchen against original brick or blockwork that has never been made flat, so scribes of 15 to 20mm along a run are normal and every piece is templated to the wall exactly as it is rather than to a drawing. Nothing goes back on carcasses the building has pulled out of square. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The beading was covering a bowed wall.

The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. Disconnection happens before the old top is lifted, not during. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Nothing goes out until the route back to the van is clear.

No, not particularly, and it would be easy to say otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. That is the local housing talking rather than anything about the job. It is priced, cut and fitted no differently here than anywhere else we cover. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. The flat earns nothing while it sits empty. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Same day, because the void is the whole budget.

A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Any overhang gets underpinned first. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Strip out first, then measure what is actually there. Book the goods lift and loading bay for the day, clear a straight route through the open plan, and have a plumber on hand for the island services coming up through the floor. Nobody reseals a worktop annually in a let property, so a material that depends on being resealed is the wrong specification however well it photographs. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. The plumber is booked by whoever holds the contract.

The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Services coming up through a floor slab mean the island cannot move to suit the stone, so the stone is cut to suit the island. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. The tiles above will want attention once the old top goes.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The shape is measured again, not copied off the old top.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Poured screed over steel decking can fall away across a long run, so level is checked across the whole room before anything is packed. Many of these kitchens are island pods in the middle of an open plan with waste and feeds coming up through the floor, so the island cannot be nudged to suit the stone and the stone gets cut to suit the island. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Ceilings are high and there are usually no wall units, so a splashback runs to whatever height is decided rather than to a cupboard. Where brickwork bows enough that a full-depth piece cannot go back tight, the units move forward and the front overhang changes. What is under the old top is the real question.